I don't know if y'all have moved in the same spaces I have, been around the same sorts of people.

Please believe me when I tell you there is a too-large, well-armed, and passionate portion of our population that is salivating at the idea of shooting people in the streets.

Depending on their flavor, they call that moment when they get to do so different things.

Boogaloo (civil war 2, electric boogaloo)
RaHoWa (racial holy war)
Chimpout (meaning obvious and awful)

It's all got the air of Revelations, an eschatology yearning to enforce racial will.

It is almost always about establishing the "correct" social order. It is almost always heavily white supremacist.

And it's a chance for them to "finally," once the cops and laws get out of the way, "do what has to be done."

Always out of "self defence" and "righteousness."

They expect to be praised for this. Expect to have society rise up with them. Expect to be proven right.

And they expect you to make excuses for them up until the moment they are able to act.

So please, for the love of god, stop goddamn telling me I'm overreacting.

Last night the police shook the hands and tended to the needs of armed white militiamen, and then those militiamen shot protesters in the streets, exactly as they understood the police had directed them to do.

And they're being cheered on, in all the conservative mentions today.

And when I studied accounts of the Wilmington massacre, in eighteen ninety goddamn eight, I saw exactly the same goddamn arguments, for exactly the same goddamn actions.

Because this ideology didn't come from nowhere.

And it isn't going anywhere.

A third of our country, will kill another third of our country, while the remaining third watches.

But sure, things will be fine in November. January, at the latest.

50 years. We're looking at 50 years of work to fix the damage being done right now. 50 years of organizing, rebuilding, maybe even fighting in the goddamn streets.

Put on your big kid pants. There's work to do.

(This, by the way, is why I refuse to call the villains of history monsters. Much like "hero," a monster isn't human. You don't need to worry about your fellow humans doing this, because only monsters would.

As a historian... I have some very bad news about humans.)